- JPMorgan Chase has briefed the Treasury Department on more than $1 billion in suspicious transactions involving Jeffrey Epstein, which took place 16 years after the notorious sex offender committed suicide in 2019, a U.S. Virgin Islands attorney told a federal judge at a hearing .
- “Epstein’s entire deal with JPMorgan and JPMorgan’s entire deal with Epstein was human trafficking,” Mimi Liu, a US Virgin Islands attorney, told US District Court Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan, according to The Daily Beast.
- The bank denies any wrongdoing in the case.
Jeffrey Epstein in Cambridge, MA in 1984.
Rick Friedman | Corbis news | Getty Images
JPMorgan Chase has reportedly briefed the Treasury Department on more than $1 billion in suspicious transactions by Jeffrey Epstein, which took place 16 years after the notorious sex offender’s suicide in 2019, a U.S. Virgin Islands attorney told a federal judge a hearing.
“Epstein’s entire dealings with JPMorgan and JPMorgan’s entire dealings with Epstein were human trafficking,” Mimi Liu, a Virgin Islands attorney, told U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan, according to The Daily Beast Thursday.
Citing the bank’s filing with the Treasury Department, Liu argued that Rakoff should issue a summary judgment against JPMorgan, which is being sued by the Virgin Islands government for allegedly aiding and abetting the sex trafficking of young women by Epstein when he was a client of the bank from 1998 to 2013 .
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Citing a $9 million wire freeze to women and suspected withdrawals from Epstein’s accounts at JPMorgan, the attorney said it involves “facilitating” more than 20,000 sexual acts, The Daily Beast reported, given the habit of Epstein to pay several hundred dollars for every sexual encounter.
“JPMorgan was a full-service bank for Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation,” Liu said at the hearing, Bloomberg reported.
“The only reason JPMorgan reported $1 billion in suspicious transactions after 16 years was because he was arrested and then dead,” Liu said, according to Bloomberg.
She accuses the bank of continuing to do business with Epstein despite repeated internal red flags and his 2008 admission of guilt over a Florida sex crime, the report said.
Epstein, 66, took his own life in a New York jail in August 2019, a month after he was arrested on federal child trafficking charges. In addition to a residency in Manhattan, Epstein owned a private island in the Virgin Islands, where he has been accused of sexually abusing women.
A lawyer for JPMorgan, who denies wrongdoing in the case, dismissed the Virgin Islands’ claim that they should be held liable for aiding and abetting Epstein’s abuse of women.
The Virgin Islands is seeking at least $190 million in damages in this case. The trial will be heard on October 23 if Rakoff does not grant summary judgment to either side.
The bank’s attorney, Felicia Ellsworth, told Rakoff that the Virgin Islands had “not produced a shred of evidence” that JPMorgan violated sex trafficking laws, according to The Daily Beast.
Ellsworth also argued that the Virgin Islands lacked legal standing to sue the bank. JPMorgan said the American Territory can only sue to enforce residents’ rights and that there is no evidence that any of Epstein’s victims were residents of the Virgin Islands.
“There is heavily disputed testimony and evidence,” Ellsworth told Rakoff, according to Bloomberg.
A JPMorgan spokeswoman declined to comment to CNBC on the Virgin Islands’ claims that the bank had informed the Treasury Department of more than $1 billion in suspicious transactions by Epstein.
JPMorgan agreed in July to pay $290 million as part of a settlement with Epstein victims to resolve a similar lawsuit filed by one of the accusers in Manhattan federal court.
In June, Deutsche Bank, which took on Epstein as a client after he was kicked out by JPMorgan in 2013, agreed to pay $75 million to Epstein’s victims to settle a third lawsuit in the same court.